EVEN the most cursory glance at the state of traffic in Pakistan’s cities and towns is evidence enough that if there are any regulations at all, they are mostly along the lines of ‘chaos rules’.

Particularly in the larger metropolises including Karachi and Lahore, it seems beyond the capabilities of the authorities to, for example, ensure that basic road safety laws are followed.

Beyond anecdotal evidence, there is cause for further concern: according to the Global Status Report on Road Safety 2015, released recently, Pakistan is amongst the minority countries in the world that do not have integrated death registration data for traffic accidents.

Know more: 90pc road traffic deaths occur in developing countries: report

This essentially means that, at a national level, the country is not even keeping track of the trends and projections in this area.

True, there is a National Transport Research Centre but it receives no funding in the national budget. Neither have we managed to formulate a national road safety strategy or come up with a fatality reduction target. Shockingly, it seems that even regular inspections of the road infrastructure have not made it to the agenda of our administrators.

The list of failings is a long one, and the report finds that even where laws exist — such as seatbelt and motorcycle helmets requirements — they are poorly enforced.

Obviously, part of the blame must fall on the authorities that are directly concerned with traffic management; even so, it is hard not to sympathise with them given the monumentally difficult challenge they face.

And policymakers too have underperformed; for example, they have generally failed to make well-planned urban mass transit systems a priority.

Nevertheless, it is a matter of some astonishment that road users themselves refuse to make either their own safety, or that of others, a priority.

Thousands of lives are lost every year in traffic accidents; yet that has not elicited from either the citizenry or its administrators any semblance of a strong response.

Manifestly, conditions on this country’s roads will improve only when there is a lobby for it.

Published in Dawn, October 21st, 2015

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